Addiction is a dependence on a substance or behavior that the afflicted person is unable to control. Substance addictions can include for example alcoholism, drug abuse, and smoking whereas process addictions can include for example, gambling, spending, shopping, eating, and sexual activity.
Dependence upon drugs has serious and deleterious effects on the social, economic and medical condition of the addicted individual. The problem with substance addiction is prevalent in the world. In the United States, this problem is specifically compounded by the ease of access to several addictive substances such as, for example, nicotine, cocaine, amphetamine, methamphetamine, ethanol, heroin, morphine, phencyclidine (PCP), methylenedioxymethamphetamine (MDMA). These and other addictive substances are readily available and routinely used by large segments of the United States population. Indeed, by the age of 12, about 50% of adolescents have consumed alcohol, about 40% have smoked tobacco, and about 20% have smoked marijuana. Non-medical use of prescription pain relievers, sedatives, and stimulants is also on the increase.
Addiction is characterized by compulsive drug-seeking and use, even in the face of negative health consequences. There are several co-morbid pathologies related to the addictive abuse of illegal substances, which fall into different categories. Firstly, the high death index related to the toxic effects induced by the overdose of such substances. Secondly, the induction of teratogenic effects in the newborn, which are frequently associated to the chronic abuse of illegal substances by addicted pregnant mothers. Finally, the high incidence of co-morbid diseases of acquiring viral infections such as the human immunodeficiency virus (HIV), frequently detected in heroin abusers, as well as the increased rates of crimes, violence and delinquency frequently associated to the drug-trade and drug-intake of such illegal substances.
Several families of addictive drugs are in fact derived from natural plant sources. For example, cocaine is a naturally occurring nonamphetamine stimulant derived from the leaves of the coca plant, Erythroylon coca. Epidemiologically, the pyschostimulants such as cocaine and amphetamines, and to a lesser extent, opiate substances, like heroin and morphine, represent the most prevalent drugs causing the highest addictive morbidity worldwide.
The addictive liability of drugs of abuse, such as for example, cocaine, nicotine, methamphetamine, morphine, heroin, ethanol, phencyclidine, methylenedioxmethamphetamine or other drugs of abuse has been linked to their pharmacological actions on mesotelencephalic dopamine (DA) reinforcement/reward pathways in the central nervous system (CNS). Dopaminergic transmission within these pathways is modulated by gamma-amino butyric acid (GABA).
Alcohol abuse and alcohol dependency are also among the most serious types of addiction. Alcohol addiction can cause liver, pancreatic and kidney disease, heart disease, including dilated cardiomyopathy, polyneuropathy, internal bleeding, brain deterioration, alcohol poisoning, increased incidence of many types of cancer, insomnia, depression, anxiety, and even suicide. Heavy alcohol consumption by a pregnant mother can also lead to fetal alcohol syndrome, which is an incurable condition. Additionally, alcohol abuse and alcohol dependence are major contributing factors for head injuries, motor vehicle accidents, violence and assaults, and other neurological and other medical problems.
Dependence on nicotine is yet another progressive and prevalent type of addiction in both developed and underdeveloped countries around the world. The impact of nicotine addiction in terms of morbidity, mortality, and economic costs to society is enormous. Tobacco kills more than 430,000 U.S. citizens each year, more than alcohol, cocaine, heroin, homicide, suicide, car accidents, fire, and AIDS combined. Tobacco use is the leading preventable cause of death in the United States. Economically, an estimated $80 billion of total U.S. health care costs each year is attributable to smoking. However, this cost is well below the total cost to society because it does not include burn care from smoking-related fires, perinatal care for low-birth-weight infants of mothers who smoke, and medical care costs associated with disease caused by secondhand smoke. Taken together, the direct and indirect costs of smoking are estimated at $138 billion per year.
In the past, treatment of chemical dependence largely involved attempts to persuade patients to discontinue use of the substance voluntarily (behavioral therapy). However, cocaine, morphine, amphetamines, nicotine, and alcohol, and other types of dopamine-producing agents are highly addictive substances, and dependence upon such drugs can be harder to break and is significantly more damaging than dependence on most other addictive substances. In particular, alcohol, cocaine, and heroin dependence are typically chronic relapsing disorders.
Accordingly, there has been much interest in the scientific community in attempting to find substances that could be employed to ameliorate dependency on addictive agents. It is therefore clear that there has been and remains today a long standing need for compositions and methods to treat addiction and related diseases or disorders in a living human subject before the disease has manifested far enough to produce psychological changes, thereby allowing earlier and more effective therapeutic intervention. It would therefore be extremely beneficial if there were a way to provide a combination therapy that simultaneously provides amelioration or treatment of addiction or related diseases or disorder while at the same time simultaneously addressing other health issues related to depletion of phosphatidylcholine and increased sphingomyelin in cell membranes. Accordingly, there is a long felt need for discovering new compositions and methods that can achieve such therapeutic effects in patients with addiction or related disorders or diseases.
The present invention as disclosed and described herein provides methods and compositions for a combination therapy that can be used to treat or ameliorate addiction or related diseases or disorders while simultaneously correcting the impairment of cell membranes by correcting the ratio of phosphatidylcholine to sphingomyelin.
The present invention as disclosed and described herein provides methods and compositions for a combination therapy that can be used to treat or ameliorate addiction while simultaneously regulating fatty acid balance in cell membranes and reducing higher sphingomyelin to phosphatidylcholine ratios therein.